Andreas Christensen

TL;DR? A series of nine mistakes in a 50-second period led to Chelsea conceding the equaliser vs. Barça.

If someone solely reads the post-match media coverage from the Chelsea-Barça game, they would believe that Christensen made the (edit:) major sole error which led to Barça’s equaliser. The BBC — — stated:

"Barcelona had barely threatened but a misplaced pass from Andreas Christensen gave Andres Iniesta the opportunity to allow Messi to end his 730-minute drought against Chelsea with a crisp left-foot drive 15 minutes from time."

This post will argue that it was not (e:) just the wayward pass from Christensen, but — in fact — a catalogue of mistakes from multiple Chelsea players which allowed Barça to pounce and score the equaliser.

While Messi’s goal in itself was scored at the 74:29 mark, the build-up of the goal can be traced back to the 73:40 mark. Let’s take a look at the events which took place (along with their timestamp) as we make our case. A user posted link enabling us to view the alternate angles of the goal.

73:40 — Rakitić plays a pass to Messi who is in the middle of the pitch. Fàbregas and Kanté are double-teaming against Messi. Alba is further forward in the centre of the pitch for Barça and is making a run into the Chelsea penalty box. This is something the La Liga has seen all too often this season. Messi and Alba’s budding partnership this season has caught the eye of the press, and this could have been yet another example of their exceptional partnership. The BBC, in fact, on February 19, had dedicated an entire section to the said partnership titled "Stopping Alba would help".

73:43 — Messi tries to play through a lobbed through ball to Alba, but is blocked by Fàbregas’ shin. Alba puts his arms up in the air in disbelief because he knows a goal-scoring opportunity has just been blocked. Chelsea catch a lucky break, and Fàbregas’ interception falls to Hazard who is not marked.

73:45 — Hazard chests the ball and immediately a trio of Barça players (Busquets, Piqué, and Umtiti) surround him. Busquets and Umtiti try to pry the ball away from him, while Piqué starts running back towards his goal.

Note: Kanté starts his engine and makes a run towards the Barça goal through the left-wing. This is the first error (more on why so later). Pedro’s positioning during these moments was poor. He was behind both Fàbregas and Kanté when Messi tried to play the ball to Alba. He was effectively marking the air because all other Barça players were covered. Ideally, he should have been either parallel to Messi or in front of Busquets during these moments.

But this (e: Pedro's positioning in and of itself) was not the error. His mistake was not making the run on the left-flank the moment Hazard controlled the ball. He is walking (not even jogging) towards the Barça goal while Hazard is shielding the ball, which meant that Kanté — after spotting the acres of space on the left-wing (vacated because Sergi Roberto was in the final-third of the pitch anticipating a Barça attack) — made the run in order to exploit the space left open by Roberto.

73:48 — Hazard cuts back just a little in order to create space for himself and releases the ball to Willian who gets on his bike. Willian is unmarked because Alba was in the Chelsea penalty area anticipating a Barça attack. The pass from Hazard is a tad wayward (but the best he could have done under the circumstances) and forces Willian to go just a little wide in order to collect it.

73:50 — Willian collects the ball and makes a run towards the goal. He is behind only Piqué (who must be given due credit for smartly reading the game: anticipating what Hazard was going to do, and making the run back towards his goal to prevent Willian from getting a one-on-one opportunity versus ter Stegen). Piqué is also helped out by the minimal waywardness of the pass as Willian had to drift just a little to the right before making his run towards goal, giving Piqué that crucial extra second in his recovery run.

This is where the second mistake is made. Willian spots the run of Kanté after he has controlled the ball, but does not release it. If he released a through ball at that very moment, the ball would then reach Kanté who would then have a one-on-one opportunity versus ter Stegen. Sergi Roberto was a considerable distance behind Kanté, and even though Rakitić is making a recovery run towards Kanté, he would not be able to reach Kanté before the through pass.

Willian — perhaps buoyed with confidence after scoring the first goal of the game, or anticipating that Kanté may not do well in an attacking situation — decides to dribble himself. This closes any opportunity for a pass to Kanté as both Sergi Roberto and Rakitić have completed their recovery runs and positioned themselves in a manner which meant that Kanté will not have any goalscoring opportunity.

73:54 — Willian tries to cut inside, but an expert tackle from Piqué gets the ball fairly and now Chelsea have no goalscoring opportunity at all.

73:56 — Umtiti controls the ball which has been won fairly by Piqué and Barça start playing out from the back.

74:07 — The ball is played to Messi and Barça have 10 of their players in their own half, with only Suárez making a run towards the Chelsea goal.

74:08 — Messi releases a world-class long-ball to Suárez, who is between Christensen and Rüdiger. The ball reaches its intended target — Suárez, on the edge of the penalty box, cutting through both Christensen and Rüdiger.

74:11 — The ball reaches its intended target but some good pressure from Rüdiger results in Suárez not being able to control it and tumbling down in the box, appealing for a penalty.

74:13 — This is where the third mistake is made. Christensen, perhaps believing that Rüdiger has touched the ball (for what it’s worth, in real-time it didn’t look like he had), tries to control the ball before it goes out for what he believes would be a corner. The smart play would have been either asking the goalkeeper to come and collect it, or letting it roll out (for what would have most probably been a goal-kick).

Instead, Christensen tries to control it. Inexplicably, he tries to control it with his feet rather than his chest, even though no Barça player is anywhere near the Chelsea box and Suárez is down appealing for a penalty. He fails miserably with his attempted control, which actually is just about to send the ball for a corner. Christensen tracks back and prevents it from going for a corner just in the nick of time. This has allowed Barça players to return to the Chelsea half.

74:20 — Christensen then plays the ball to Kanté who simply plays it back to him. This is where the previous events become relevant. Anyone who would have started watching the game from 74:13 would have surely (and rightly!) counted Kanté playing the ball back to Christensen as a mistake and a poor decision. But, given what just transpired before it is totally understandable why Kanté did so. Kanté had just run from box-to-box and may have perhaps been out of breath or out of position, therefore decided to play the ball back to Christensen.

This is why Pedro’s casual walk towards the Barça goal at 73:45 ends up hurting Chelsea, and is therefore counted as the first mistake. Had he made the run instead of Kanté, it would not only have increased the likelihood of Willian giving a through ball to Pedro at 73:50, but it would have also meant that Kanté would have remained in position and would therefore be better suited to play the ball forward from Christensen’s pass at 74:20.

At this point I feel really poorly for Christensen because even before (and in fact, while) playing the ball to Kanté, he was gesticulating with his arms that he wanted Kanté to pass the ball to someone other than him, but Kanté gave it straight back to him.

Note: Credit where credit is due, and Busquets deserves immense credit for his pressing at this moment. At 74:20 he was second-furthest forward for Barça (behind only Suárez) and it is his pressure which also leads to Kanté playing the ball back to Christensen.

74:23 — Christensen — aware that he is being closed down by Aleix Vidal, and that he cannot play the ball to Kanté — plays a wayward pass. The intended recipient of the pass cannot be deciphered — it may either be Azpilicueta or Fàbregas. But the pass itself is so awful that it doesn’t reach either. This was undoubtedly the fourth and second-biggest mistake, because it allowed a chance to be created. Christensen is rightly being panned for the same.

This is where the importance of footballing instincts is revealed. The moment Christensen plays the pass, both Messi and Iniesta smartly read that it is wayward and begin pressing. Fàbregas, Azpilicueta, and Moses are all slow to react — perhaps each anticipating that the other will deal with it.

74:24 — This is where the fifth mistake is made. When the ball is with Christensen on the left-wing, Rüdiger is perfectly positioned on the left of Suárez thereby being in a position where he can either intercept or fight for a ball meant for Suárez. But he just switches off when Christensen plays the ball to the other wing. Instead of smartly reading the game like Piqué did during Chelsea’s previous attack, Rüdiger is ball-watching is jogging towards it when he should be rushing towards the other side of Suárez in order to intercept any ball which can be played towards him.

It’s only at 74:27 (when Iniesta strolls into the penalty box with the ball) that Rüdiger realises his error and tries to make up for it. By then it is too late. Iniesta could have just as easily played the ball to Suárez — who was not just unmarked but also onside — and it would have still ended up in the back of the net. Arguably, Iniesta chose to make the harder pass to Messi, but the result was the same — a goal.

74:26 — This is where the sixth and biggest mistake is made. Azpilicueta — wanting to nip the chance in its bud — goes in with a sliding tackle to clear the ball. He misses not just the ball but also Iniesta. For me, this is the biggest mistake, because if you are going to commit, you need to be absolutely certain that you are either going to get the ball or the man, because otherwise you are leaving your team with a man down in defence.

Ask any Chelsea fan and they will rate Azpilicueta as their best defender, so it is even more crushing that it was his mistake which was the biggest.

What makes it worse is that Azpilicueta could have easily beaten Iniesta for pace and got to the ball before Iniesta did. He could have then passed it to Moses, or cleared it for a throw-in which would have allowed Chelsea to regroup. Even if Iniesta got to the ball before him, he could have muscled him off of it, or made a fair tackle, or made a professional foul and taken one for the team, or double-teamed Iniesta with Moses. This is why it’s absolutely gut-wrenching for me as a Chelsea fan that Azpilicueta of all people made this error. I’m gutted for him.

74:27 — Iniesta skips past the tackle from Azpilicueta, and cruises into the Chelsea penalty box. This is where the seventh mistake is made. Moses anticipates that Azpilicueta will win the tackle and doesn’t track back to cover for him in case he doesn’t. He fails to read the game properly. Contrast this with Piqué’s smart reading of the game during Chelsea’s previous attack and one can easily understand why Moses must be replaced with a defensively sound wing-back next season, and why Piqué is one of the best defenders in the world.

74:28 — This is where the eighth mistake is made. Fàbregas is attracted towards the ball and rushes towards Iniesta, perhaps realising that Iniesta is unmarked in the penalty box rushes towards him as Moses is nowhere near. But a defensively-aware midfielder would have made a run towards Suárez at that moment. This is because of multiple reasons.

• First, a run towards Suárez would mean that Iniesta would no longer have the easier option of passing the ball to an unmarked player and that he would have to make the tougher pass — a cut back to Messi.

• Second, it would have enabled Fàbregas to block Messi’s shot in case it was headed towards the right side of the post (which would mean that Courtois in all likelihood would dive to the left, saving Messi’s shot).

• Lastly, it would have encouraged Iniesta to try and take an angled shot on his weaker foot when Courtois had all his angles covered, further reducing any chance of the ball ending up in the back of the net.

This is where the lack of a mature midfielder who is equal parts attacking and defensive is hurting Chelsea. Playing without Fàbregas — as Chelsea did for much of last season — meant very little creativity, while playing with him has obvious defensive limitations.

74:29 — The ninth and final mistake is committed by Courtois when Messi is about to take his shot. As Steven Gerrard pointed out on BT Sport, Courtois goes down way too early, perhaps anticipating where Messi will place his shot. Perhaps the videos he was shown and information he was given led him to make this decision — but we’ll never know that. What we do know is that Courtois did go down too early and that left him with absolutely no chance to save Messi’s shot.

To conclude, therefore, it was not — in fact — a singular error from Christensen, but in fact a catalogue of errors from multiple Chelsea players that led to Barça’s equaliser. It is crushing because Chelsea could have gotten away with even a couple of errors, but this string constituted of almost the perfect storm which resulted in Barça’s equaliser, and swung the entire tie in their favour. That is why it is gonna hurt if we are knocked out! Now I know how Barça fans felt in 2012…

Congratulations on making it to the end of the post! Thank you for sparing 10 minutes of your time. I hope you enjoyed my analysis. Feel free to disagree in the comments below. I look forward to a fruitful discussion on tactical aspects. :)

In your opinion, who should be the first choice starting CB? Should they both play instead of Ronald Araújo & Jules Koundé?